Air Strike Kills 40 Taliban Pigs, Wounds 30 In Afghanistan
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) — Forty Taliban were killed in air strikes to take back a district of Afghanistan captured by Islamist rebels while a British soldier was killed in a separate clash, officials said Friday.
Afghan and NATO-led ground forces supported by international military air support launched an offensive on Wednesday to retake Ajristan, 200 kilometres (124 miles) southwest of Kabul, after rebels stormed in Monday.
“Over 40 Taliban fighters were killed and 30 were wounded in an overnight coalition air strike in Ajristan district,” Ghazni province spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP as the operation continued Friday for a third day.
The district governor, who fled after the Taliban captured the district, confirmed the air strike casualties and said two civilians also died.
“On top of 40 Taliban killed and 30 wounded, we have information that two civilians were also killed in the bombing,” Rad Mohammad Waziri told AFP.
International forces could not immediately confirm the air strike.
Fifteen militants were killed on the first day of the operation by joint Afghan and international forces, Jahangir said earlier.
Ajristan was also captured by Taliban insurgents in October last year and was retaken the following day, when about 300 security forces moved into the small district centre.
Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to hold most of them for long, although there are a handful in southern Helmand province that security forces admit are in rebel control.
The hardline Islamic Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001 when they were driven out in a US-led invasion.
They are waging an insurgency which has gained pace in the past two years, claiming hundreds of lives including scores of civilians.
A British army dog handler and his explosives sniffer dog were killed Thursday in Helmand when they came under fire while on patrol, the Ministry of Defence in London said.
Six other soldiers were also injured, although not seriously.
Meanwhile, in the western province of Farah, a roadside bomb apparently intended to hit Afghan or NATO troops blew up a civilian vehicle and killed three people, said Akramudin Yawar, police commander for western Afghanistan.
He blamed the attack on the Taliban.
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I am going to Jalalabad in a couple of weeks does anybody know about the bases there? Thanks Bob
July 25th, 2008 at 6:44 amIt’s interesting that the AP/MSM, while saying that thousands of people have died in Afghanistan over the last year or so, usually fail to mention that the vast majority were Taliban who were killed. Sounds to me like the news is slanted to make the Coalition look bad by omitting critical information, or maybe the MSM is just careless with the facts. Knowing the MSM like we do, it’s hard to not believe the former.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:18 amAs usual, the MSM is full of crap when it comes to reporting on the “facts” on the ground.
July 25th, 2008 at 7:47 amA friend of mine was in Afghanistan recently (in a non-military capacity) and told me that many Afghanis that he met were happy to have the Coalition military there - it made them feel safe and gave them hope that the murdering bastard jihad scum Taliban would not be around to wreak havoc any time soon. Funny, civilian casualties never came up in the conversation…..
Once again the LLMSM establishment fails to tell the whole story. The vast majority of civilian deaths have been Muslim-on-Muslim violence….with the other deaths being jihadi scum.
Muslim-on-Muslim violence menas the jihadis have murdered and slaughtered civilians or has used them as human shields.
That’s what is going on in the GWOT. Wheras the west mourns civilian casualties, the jihadi scum just “inshallah’s them”.
July 25th, 2008 at 10:54 am